It’s a world record! After six years artist’s work FINALLY recognised as being a record breaker
An artist’s dream of having his wall art recognised as being the largest pencil mural in the world has finally come true after it was officially declared by the Guinness Book of Records.
Sebastian Krawczak from the Mazowsze town of Grójec spent 48 days working five or six hours a day on his huge sketch which covers an area of 85.02 square metres and depicts a faithful representation of the town’s market square from 1867.
The pencil artist used 98 full graphite pencils to paint the mural, the equivalent of about 1000 ordinary pencils.
The ‘Panorama of Grójec’ was created 6 years ago on the gable end of a building at the junction of Armii Krajowej and Piłsudskiego streets in central Grójec.
Before work could begin, the wall had to be specially prepared for pencil work – it had to be properly primed, levelled, smoothed and painted with white paint. After the record-breaking work was completed, it was protected from rain with special waterproofing.
Shortly after he completed the mammoth feat, Sebastian’s friends wrote to the Guinness Book of Records; however, it was only at the end of last year that the global record keeping institution confirmed that Sebastian’s opus magnus was exactly 16 cm2 larger than the previous record holder, making it the largest pencil mural in the world.
To create such an intricate drawing on such a scale, Sebastian executed a meticulously planned strategy. First, he created the image on paper divided into 1.96cmx1.96cn squares.
The 40-year-old then transferred these tiny squares onto 1x1 metre squares on the wall of the building in a process that maintained the right proportions. The artist says that this method allows lots of tiny details to be drawn and is used by many great painters.
The pencil artist used 98 full graphite pencils to paint the mural, the equivalent of about 1000 ordinary pencils.
His greatest enemy when creating the graphite veduta back in 2012 was the cold autumn weather; however, local people from Grójec kept his spirits up as he hung from specially erected scaffolding by cheering his efforts from street level.
This is certainly true of the Grójec mural, which depicts tiny windows with shadows on the panes, wooden floor boards, people walking on the market square, horse-drawn carriages, carts, paved streets and sky.
Before work could begin, the wall had to be specially prepared for pencil work – it had to be properly primed, levelled, smoothed and painted with white paint. After the record-breaking work was completed, it was protected from rain with special waterproofing.
It was only at the end of 2018 that the Guinness Book of Records confirmed that Sebastian Krawczak’s opus magnus was exactly 16 cm2 larger than the previous record holder, making it the largest pencil mural in the world.
The panorama of the market square is not Sebastian’s first large-format drawing. A few years earlier he drew a locomotive on the side of a friend’s house.
The extremely precise work of art creates an illusion of depth that gives the impression that a steel train is bursting through the house.
The artist’s work has been exhibited in the Grójec Culture Centre as well as in Kozienice and Warsaw.
